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Drought Dispatch is a weekly series tracking how the California drought is affecting, in both expected and unexpected ways, food in the Bay Area.

Tim and Jill Pedrozo normally begin forming wheels of their Black Butte Reserve, a gouda-like cheese made from spring milk, in February. But the Pedrozo’s 20-acre farm in Orland, which they’ve been farming for 15 years, didn’t turn green with lush rye grasses until the late spring rains began that month.

“We’re a month behind,” Tim says.

He counts himself lucky, though: The past two months have delivered enough rain to the north Sacramento Valley that his 30 cows are out in the fields. In addition, he has access to a well that he can use to irrigate come June — the later the summer heat hits, the more Black Butte Reserve he can produce.

“Because the winter was mild, the state’s milk production has been up,” says Michael Marsh, chief executive officer of the Western United Dairymen. Most of the conventional dairy farms in California are still feeding their cattle hay grown last year.

But with California farmers leaving fallow hundreds of thousands of acres normally devoted to alfalfa and other forage — there’s no water to irrigate them — the situation is going to change soon. And trucking hay from out of state is getting increasingly expensive.

Organic dairy farms in Sonoma and Marin felt the impact of the drought much earlier, as the Chronicle reported about in February. We’re not talking about a few cows on the fringe: Three-fourths of all dairy farms in those two counties are certified organic.

According to Sue Conley, co-owner of the certified organic Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes, the late spring rains have eased the pressure on three nearby farms that supply her cheesemaking operation with milk.

“Our milk prices have gone up a little bit,” Conley says. “Luckily, the dairies we work with are loyal to us. These guys are so calm because they’re so used to disaster coming at the one way or another. It’s really astonishing.”

But the price of milk is not the only concern. Making cheese is a water-intensive process–primarily because the equipment has to be washed and sanitized so thoroughly. Conley says Cowgirl has just invested $100,000 in a new vat and water reuse system to reduce consumption before the cities that supply water to her two cheesemaking facilities impose limits and hike prices.

“We don’t like to raise our prices, but we’ve had two milk price increases, and the dairies are just saying there’s going to be another couple. We’re going to try to absorb those as much as we can. It depends how big the hit is.”